Budget limited for township roads

COLDWATER — Branch County township supervisors will sit down with the Branch County Road Commission this month to decide which roads will receive local maintenance this summer.

There are 644 miles of locals roads in Branch County — 303 are paved roads and 341 are gravel. The state has 365 miles of primary roads covered by other parts of the road budget.

The BCRC has allocated only $550,000 for local road maintenance this year. This means it will cover only 71 percent of the townships' road maintenance costs which translates to about 38 miles to be completed spread among the 16 townships.

All this comes with an increase in costs and budgets that have fallen over the last three years. While the governor is looking for ways to raise revenues to rebuild infrastructure, budgets for the BCRC fell from $6.4 million in 2010 to $5.6 million this year.

Two factors resulted in the drop in road taxes — more efficient vehicles and people driving less because of higher gas prices.

To do the necessary work the BCRC has spent more than revenues, so the fund balance or emergency reserves have dropped from $1.8 million in 2010 to $1.6 million and will go to almost half that by 2014.

BCRC Manager-Engineer Trent Arver explained, "We know the conditions of our roads and specific repairs needed, but like most road agencies we are struggling to fund these repairs."

To bring 80 percent of the county’s roads to good or fair condition would cost approximately $12.4 million, then $8.4 million annually to maintain them.

"Our annual state funding is $3.9 million and much of that is directed toward snow removal and summer routine maintenance," Arver stated.

Part of the problem is the state has not raised any transportation revenues since 1997, while costs have gone up substantially.

Arver said the road commission is emphasizing preservation of roads as the most effective use of funds.

"Every dollar invested in preventive maintenance today prevents spending $6 to $14 later as pavement deteriorates and becomes more costly to repair," he said.

The BCRC this year will require townships to cover the actual material costs for seal coating roads, which is estimated at $11,500 per mile, with the BCRC paying the other $3,000 in labor and equipment. If a township wants to maintain more than the allocation it must pay $14,000 a mile. To repave a road with 2 inches of asphalt will cost around $100,00 a mile.

Bids this year for emulsion, which makes up 92 percent of the material used, was up 6 percent, while aggregate costs were up 2 percent.

Arver said the goal is not to reduce the amount of local seal coating, "However, difficult decisions are being made to prioritize preventive road maintenance while still performing basic maintenance."

If townships want more work done they must allocate property tax revenues to cover those costs. Typically, ad valorem property taxes are not used for road work.

Page 2 of 2 - Road Commissioner Gary Malcolm said many counties and even townships have passed millages for roads to pay for local needs.

Former Gilead Township Supervisor and current Road Commissioner Robert Mayer said that would be something each township would need to decide if road needs are great enough. Those could be rolled into a county millage to be proposed and passed.

In informal discussions, Mayer said an increase in sales tax expected to be proposed by the governor could solve road revenue problems rather than an increase in gas taxes. As prices increased there would be more income.

As it is now when the price of a gallon of gas jumped 27 cents last week, road commissions did not get a penny more and likely saw revenues drop because drivers bought less gas.